Atheism is a blank slate. Null program. A lack of belief. A baby is an atheist in that a baby is a blank slate with a lack of belief.

We’ve explained all of this to you before. What element in the above sequence escapes you?

Do you really think all atheist share your definition of atheism? I know 4 people who call themselves atheist - none of whom define it as you do - most just dislike religion and repeat - “there’s no God” when asked about what they believe. And of course a non-belief is a belief in itself - what is it that you don’t believe?

Any intelligent atheist will share that definition, because that is the definition of atheism.

Why don’t you accept that you don’t know what you’re talking about; you are essentially a person of faith - not reason.

Seriously? You actually think that all intelligent people who call themselves atheist share this definition? (wikipedia has a slightly different one) - whatever.

The definition of atheist is disbelief in deities. What the hell is so hard to understand about that?

Anybody who says otherwise is wrong.

I see that Equal Opportunity Curmugeon beat me to it, but Wikipedia is not really a reliable source.

No human being knows for certain how the universe began or how it will end if it does end.

This is true. But there is research going on, maybe we will discover it. But maybe we don’t. But that does not mean that somebody else then just can say “See, God did it!” You see, “don’t know” means “don’t know” and not “God”.

Recently brain science has revealed that the human brain is hardwired to experience spiritual events. Nature has evolved in the human brain the ability to register some sort of invisible force that is identifiable by its signature results in human beings—they report spiritual contact and some come away with products from that contact, visions and revelations that also identify the Source by common themes appearing in different people’s revelations.

For your first sentence you should give references. I have no idea what ‘hardwired to experience spiritual events’ means, so I want to read this from sources. Then you conclude from ‘experiences’ to the independent existence of the contents of the experiences. We know that we also have dreams, fantasies, and hallucinations. Under certain circumstances these can have a big impact on how people experience their lives. But that still does not mean that the contents of these have an independent existence, or represent objective truths. There are perfectly natural explanations about e.g. near death experiences. And that there are common themes could also have another simple explanation: all those experiences arise in similar brains.

Is this your conclusive judgment?

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GdB

When the word ‘truth’ is uttered a shadow of violence is cast as well.

Just a thought here after reading your posts, the “evidence” you present is a science fiction movie (not a bad production for it’s time, big Nielson fan although I prefer the Time Machine) and anecdotal ramblings concerning the ” logic” of history and a presumed supernatural experience where you replicated the Quakers (society of friends) and the Shakers who died out due to their major tenet of celibacy. And this cobbled together with generalistic comments on astronomy somehow disproves atheism? I do want to address the idea of logic in history that you mention being taught to school children. There are essentially two forms, chronological and topical. In the latter teachers may cherry pick themes to make a particular point about an historical event such as what caused a particular war or the impact of a natural disaster. The former is cause and effect but these can and have been used by historians to prove a particular point by merely emphasizing one point and de-emphasizing others ex. The “great man"theory of history where the author emphasizes the contribution of one individual while de-emphasizing the effects that surround him/her. My point is that you can find “logic” in history by piecing together what supports your contention while excluding info that would weaken or refute it. This is a common mistake made by people, ie. pulling historical data out of context to support a claim, which is what you are doing. If anything history SUPPORTS atheism by clearly analyizing the written origins of religion from the Sumerians to Christianity’s earliest beginnings. In short we created it and their remains no evidence of the existence of the supernatural. But you can be as self delusional as you want, been there done that, tried it, no god, no fairies, no trolls, no incubus, no sucubus, lots of stories though and I do like them as they relate to history. If you’ re a real seeker you’ll find the facts work better than any truth you form through intuition.

Where the hell do non-scientists who have only a vague idea about the concepts of mathematics come up with stupid statements like “space is infinite”? Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Occam

So true!

Seriously? You think I don’t have access to the internet? Don’t you think I’d have the backing of the majority of experts or the most recent studies before making any comment? Regardless you don’t need to be an expert to know that putting a limit on the size of space/the mutliverse/the mult-dimensionality of everything is futile - (besides, I did say “if”) If you would like a link on the concept of infinity - from the experts - here you go http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIaS2aCD_b4

Don’t you think I’d have the backing of the majority of experts or the most recent studies before making any comment?

You don’t have the backing of ANY subject expert who ACTUALLY knows what they’re talking about on anything, but that hasn’t stopped you from commenting or cherry picking data which might have been credible at one time but has since been falsified.

Signature

Question authority and think for yourself. Big Brother does not know best and never has.

Where the hell do non-scientists who have only a vague idea about the concepts of mathematics come up with stupid statements like “space is infinite”? Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Occam

Good post! I’d like to say I expect more from a moderator, but I don’t - as it seems in keeping with most comments on this site. Anyhow I don’t think any expertise in needed to know that making any conclusion on infinity is ridiculous - which is why I used the word “if”. I guess you missed that…?

I note in the responses posted that none of you atheists are really comprehending your philosophy is dead now. I destroyed it by merely pointing out it’s irrational foundation,
namely believing human knowledge stands still at the atheist’s era and never progresses
further.

I don’t understand what point you think you’re making with this. In the first place, atheism is not a “philosophy”, it is merely the judgement that “in my opinion, God does not exist”. Atheists have never denied that science advances and learns more every day. In fact, that is our whole point. People used to assume that “God must have created the universe”, when now we know that there are natural explanations for it.

Nature has evolved in the human
brain the ability to register some sort of invisible force that is identifiable by its signature results
in human beings—they report spiritual contact and some come away with products from that
contact, visions and revelations that also identify the Source by common themes appearing in
different people’s revelations.

Likewise we don’t deny that people have “spiritual” experiences. But again, there are natural explanations for them.

I have experienced spiritual contact with God and have seen spiritual reality
that underpins the whole material universe…. Has it registered yet? The death of atheist philosophy?

Nope. The only thing that has “registered” to me is that you, personally, believe what you say. Now, can you prove it for the rest of us? Until you can, it’s only your personal opinion, no better or worse than anyone else’s.

Seriously? You think I don’t have access to the internet? Don’t you think I’d have the backing of the majority of experts or the most recent studies before making any comment? Regardless you don’t need to be an expert to know that putting a limit on the size of space/the mutliverse/the mult-dimensionality of everything is futile - (besides, I did say “if”) If you would like a link on the concept of infinity - from the experts - here you go http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIaS2aCD_b4

Sorry. What has the hypothetical idea that there are infinite other universes to do with you religious certainty?

And are BBC documentaries serious science? Are the most interesting things to bring in such a documentary the ones that are most true? Are they the present understanding of the scientific community?

Signature

GdB

When the word ‘truth’ is uttered a shadow of violence is cast as well.

“My point is that you can find “logic” in history by piecing together what supports your contention while excluding info that would weaken or refute it. This is a common mistake made by people, ie. pulling historical data out of context to support a claim, which is what you are doing. If anything history SUPPORTS atheism by clearly analyizing the written origins of religion from the Sumerians to Christianity’s earliest beginnings. In short we created it and their remains no evidence of the existence of the supernatural. But you can be as self delusional as you want, been there done that, tried it, no god, no fairies, no trolls, no incubus, no sucubus, lots of stories though and I do like them as they relate to history. If you’ re a real seeker you’ll find the facts work better than any truth you form through intuition.”

Judging from the continuation of faulty reasoning by atheists here I will again take you guys through the logical steps that destroy the atheist philosophical paradigm.

When I point to what I call the “logic of history” I mean by that the historical fact that human knowledge and human ability to manipulate things has progressed since the dawning of human civilization. There is a logical reason for this: knowledge accumulates since the beginning of writing and despite innovative dead zones like the Dark Ages for Europeans, even then the Muslims were excelling at new science and recovery of lost Greek knowledge while Europeans were still running around in furs not much more advanced than hunter-gatherers. My point is there is no way for atheists to try to say this particular human knowledge avenue is invalid, e.g. ancient
Sumerian mythology or that one, e.g. Christian mythology taken literally by uneducated believers because other humans still managed to innovate despite religious
dogmas that were made to protect Jewish nationalism and/or the organized Christian Church. Human knowledge increases and abilities to alter the way things are
increases over time. The historical record clearly shows this. It is the logic of history that informs the intelligent person it is pure foolish blather for any person at one
stage of human knowledge progression to make claims that they know with such certainty they can say any person who doesn’t agree with them is crazy, doesn’t know science, isn’t logical, when they themselves are the ones who have abandoned logic, the logic of history that says what human know today is never the end of knowledge acquisition for human beings, that to hold such an irrational argument against future human powers based on knowledge we as yet do not possess but that certainly does not rule out what we will know and can do with what we know in the future.

And I have even begun to cite how and where spiritual experiences are God’s way of guiding human development as it progresses in knowledge and powers. You atheists are so behind the times spiritual conscious-wise that you are addressing and attacking the fundamentalist Christian believers who are no longer the head of Christianity and haven’t been for thinking Christians for over 200 years. I am not going to keep answering die-hard attempts to deflect or divert the point of my argument that has crushed Atheism, that argument based on the logic of history that is impossible for any rational mind to counter.
c

Ariel, It seems to me that the best that your argument does in regards to “crushing atheism” is to support the idea that no one can be 100% certain that there is no god. I can agree with this, but it is similar to saying that we cannot know with 100% certainty that Earth is not being visited by aliens from another dimension. It may be a fun idea, but without proof, it is so much fluff.

Now if you can truly show supportable evidence of (as you say) “how and where spiritual experiences are God’s way of guiding human development”, then you have something. I remain dubious.

Signature

As a fabrication of our own consciousness, our assignations of meaning are no less “real”, but since humans and the fabrications of our consciousness are routinely fraught with error, it makes sense, to me, to, sometimes, question such fabrications.